The Dust Did Roar

And she said “Losing love is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you’re blown apart
Everybody see the wind blow”

Friendships can be wonderful things. They can also lead to a lot of hurt.

Many of you reading will probably not know the name Paul Simon, but you may know the name Simon & Garfunkel.

They were a musical duo that started as childhood friends at the age of 12. A mutual love of music and harmonising brought them together. Eventually, they achieved mainstream success with their single “The Sound of Silence”, written by Paul Simon.

However, their relationship became strained and led to their breakup in 1972. They both went on to pursue solo careers, with Simon arguable finding greater success. Despite their persistent issues, they reunited several times over the decades to perform together. But each time, they found reasons to separate again.

While I was aware of Simon & Garfunkel’s most well songs, I only became exposed to Simon’s solo work when I picked out a vinyl copy of ‘Graceland’ to play on my father’s record player.

Immediately drawn to the familiar South African rhythms and instruments, I decided to lookup the background behind how Simon came to produce such a non-traditional album.

The album ‘Graceland’ was created in the aftermath of the collapse of Simon’s marriage to Carrie Fischer (Yes, THAT Carrie Fischer.) Simon happened to be given a bootleg cassette tape of South African music and became obsessed with its unique sound. He ended up flying to South Africa to record with local artists, including the soon-to-be world famous Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

But the true strength of Paul Simon has always been in his lyrics.

I may not have been in a marriage that fell apart, but in 2015 I was experiencing an emotional fallout of another kind. I remember not having anyone else to talk to, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have known what to say.

In a weird way, Simon’s lyrics became the words that I didn’t know I needed to get out into the open.

There are too many favourite songs to gush about so I’ll keep it simple and just talk about one.

‘The Obvious Child’ is the main single from Simon’s 1990 album ‘The Rhythm of the Saints’. It’s an energetic, percussion heavy song but about 3/4ths of the way through it slows down and becomes surprisingly melancholic with the following verse:

Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself
How it’s strange that some rooms are like cages
Sonny’s yearbook from high school
Is down from the shelf
And he idly thumbs through the pages
Some have died
Some have fled from themselves
Or struggled from here to get there
Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls
Runs his hand through his thinning brown hair

The line ‘Some have fled from themselves‘ always struck me deeply.

Taking my father to rehab for the first time as always felt like a truly defining moment in my life. Almost all of my decision making afterwards has felt like it comes from a deep desire to run away from that traumatising memory.

Sitting alone in my father’s apartment, listening to these words gave me some level of comfort that I can’t entirely describe.

So much of art is about making a connection to the artist, and the above example is one of the reasons why I still feel so drawn to this short, quiet kid from Queens with his guitar and his words.